dov zakheim served in the pentagon during the administrations of george w. bush and ronald reagan. he's now a senior advisor at the center for strategic and international studies. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us. john mearsheimer, i'm going to start with you. this did start with the article in foreign affairs magazine. you don't go as far as that author does in arguing that a nuclear-armed iran would be a net positive. but youo agree with hi at it would bring stability to the region. why? >> i think there's no question that a nuclear-armed iran would bring stability to the region because nuclear weapons are weapons of peace. they're weapons of deterrence. they have hardly any offensive capability at all. and if iran had a nuclear deterrent, there's no way that the united states or israel, for that matter, would be threatening to attack iran now. in the same way that if saddam had had nuclear weapons in 2003, the united states would not have invaded iraq. and if libya had nuclear weapons in 2011, the united states would not have gone to war against libya. so i think that